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From: ecs140w039@ucdavis.UUCP (Mark Nagel)
Newsgroups: net.micro.6809
Subject: Re: Introductory Info for OS/9 wanted
Message-ID: <224@ucdavis.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4-Mar-86 22:05:09 EST
Article-I.D.: ucdavis.224
Posted: Tue Mar  4 22:05:09 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Mar-86 07:38:57 EST
References: <469@watdragon.UUCP> <270@nvuxg.UUCP>
Organization: University of California, Davis
Lines: 76

/* In reference to the followup by Joe Gardina */

> 
> Graham Wilson asks;
> 
> >
> >- With the basic OS/9 package, is a full-screen editor (like vi) included?
> >- How complete is the C-compiler (anything left out)?
> 
> I don't yet have either of these (yet). I believe there is no screen editor
> included in Basic-O9 but am sure any good text editor will work.
> I am equally sure that something must be left out of the C compiler.
> 

Correct. There is no full screen editor included in Basic09.  However, there are
many good full screen editors available.  The best I have seen is XED along with
the XPRINT text formatter by Microtech Consultants.  The editor can be easily
adapted to work on a variety of terminals by altering one of the accompanying
XCODES modules.  Also, contrary to the above, the Microware C compiler is very
close to complete.  It lacks a few items such as bit fields and some minor
restrictions like macro definitions can only be on one line.  Otherwise it
supports a very good Unix compatible library and I have had little trouble
porting (smaller) C programs over from Unix.

[ . . . ]

> 
> >- I have one disk drive.  Is that enough?  Is there a substantial
> >  improvement with two disk drives?
> 
> I have two floppies and I'm already considering a hard disk. I may be
> spoiled at work but I never can have enough storage. Unless you want to
> be stuck juggling floppies for hours on end you need at least two drives.
> 

You definitely need at least two floppies.  I have an single DSQD drive and a
single sided 40 track for compatibility.  I know many people who have or are
getting a hard drive.  They make life much easier - especially in using features
in the system like multitasking and keystroke buffering.  Having only a single
floppy though will cripple the system almost beyond use.

> >- Are there any nroff/troff-like packages available?  Preferably they would 
> >  take advantage of dot-addressable printers (to get a multitude of fonts
> >  and print sizes - I have a DMP-105).
> 
> There is a package that claims to be nroff compatible. Again if someone
> could respond.
> 

The XPRINT formatter I mentioned above is not exactly like nroff, however, the
principle is the same.  You get very fine control over your printer.  It takes
full advantage of the special features of any printer like proportional
characters and underlining and especially character spacing.  If you have a 
printer that can do microdot spacing, you can get VERY professional looking
documents out.  I used to hate the way right justification looked on my DMP-110
when it stuck whole spaces in between words.  Now I love using XED/XPRINT to do
all of my word processing.

> >- What software is currently in demand (i.e. stuff which I could write to
> >  help pay for OS/9)?
> 
> To start the endless list you could write a vt100 terminal emulator that
> does half the tasks that you'd expect any terminal emulator to do. A decent
> screen editor (as VI like as possible) and anything that runs on disk
> basic should be ported over to OS-9. I don't plan on ever using the basic
> dos unless I absolutely have to. 
>  

Also, applications software is much needed.  There are plenty of toolkits and
such to make everybody happy.



			    <* Mark Nagel *>

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